been governed for more than half a century by the great Whig
families which had been brought into the foreground by the
revolution of 1688. ... Under Walpole's wise and powerful
sway, the first two Georges had possessed scarcely more than
the shadow of sovereignty. It was the third George's ambition
to become a real king, like the king of France or the king of
Spain. From earliest babyhood, his mother had forever been
impressing upon him the precept, 'George be king!' and this
simple lesson had constituted pretty much the whole of his
education. Popular tradition regards him as the most ignorant
king that ever sat upon the English throne; and so far as
general culture is concerned, this opinion is undoubtedly
correct. ... Nevertheless ... George III. was not destitute of
a certain kind of ability, which often gets highly rated in
this not too clear-sighted world. He could see an immediate
end very distinctly, and acquired considerable power from the
dogged industry with which he pursued it. In an age where some
of the noblest English statesmen drank their gallon of strong
wine daily, or sat late at the gambling-table, or lived in
scarcely hidden concubinage, George III. was decorous in
personal habits and pure in domestic relations, and no
banker's clerk in London applied himself to the details of
business more industriously than he. He had a genuine talent
for administration, and he devoted this talent most
assiduously to selfish ends. Scantily endowed with human
sympathy, and almost boorishly stiff in his ordinary unstudied
manner, he could be smooth as oil whenever he liked. He was an
adept in gaining men's confidence by a show of interest, and
securing their aid by dint of fair promises; and when he found
them of no further use, he could turn them adrift with wanton
insult. Anyone who dared to disagree with him upon even the
slightest point of policy he straightway regarded as a natural
enemy, and pursued him ever afterward with vindictive hatred.
As a natural consequence, he surrounded himself with weak and
short-sighted advisers, and toward all statesmen of broad
views and independent character he nursed the bitterest
rancour. ... Such was the man who, on coming to the throne in
1760, had it for his first and chiefest thought to break down
the growing system of cabinet government in England."
_J. Fiske,
The American Revolution,
chapter 1 (volume 1)._
"The dissolution of Parliament, shortly after his accession,
afforded an opportunity of strengthening the parliamentary
connection of the king's friends. Parliament was kept sitting
while the king and Lord Bute were making out lists of the
court candidates, and using every exertion to secure their
return. The king not only wrested government boroughs from the
ministers, in order to nominate his own friends, but even
encouraged opposition to such ministers as he conceived not to
be in his interest. ... Lord Bute, the originator of the new
policy, was not personally well qualified for its successful
promotion. He was not connected with the great families who
had acquired a preponderance of political influence; he was no
parliamentary debater: his manners were unpopular: he was a
courtier rather than a politician: his intimate relations with
the Princess of Wales were an object of scandal; and, above
all, he was a Scotchman. ... Immediately after the king's
accession he had been made a privy councillor, and admitted
into the cabinet. An arrangement was soon afterwards
concerted, by which Lord Holdernesse retired from office with
a pension, and Lord Bute succeeded him as Secretary of State.
It was now the object of the court to break up the existing
ministry, and to replace it with another, formed from among
the king's friends. Had the ministry been united, and had the
chiefs reposed confidence in one another, it would have been
difficult to overthrow them. But there were already jealousies
amongst them, which the court lost no opportunity of
fomenting. A breach soon arose between Mr. Pitt, the most
powerful and popular of the ministers, and his colleagues. He
desired to strike a sudden blow against Spain, which had
concluded a secret treaty of alliance with France, then at war
with this country.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).
Though war minister he was opposed by all his colleagues
except Lord Temple. He bore himself haughtily at the council,
--declared that he had been called to the ministry by the
voice of the people, and that he could not be responsible for
measures which he was no longer allowed to guide. Being met
with equal loftiness in the cabinet, he was forced to tender
his resignation. The king overpowered the retiring minister
with kindness and condescension. He offered the barony of
Chatham to his wife, and to himself an annuity of £3,000 a
year for three lives. The minister had deserved these royal
favours, and he accepted them, but at the cost of his
popularity. ... The same Gazette which announced his
resignation, also trumpeted forth the peerage and the pension,
and was the signal for clamors against the public favourite.
On the retirement of Mr. Pitt, Lord Bute became the most
influential of the ministers. He undertook the chief
management of public affairs in the cabinet, and the sole
direction of the House of Lords. ... His ascendency provoked
the jealousy and resentment of the king's veteran minister,
the Duke of Newcastle: who had hitherto distributed all the
patronage of the Crown, but now was never consulted. ... At
length, in May 1762, his grace, after frequent disagreements
in the cabinet and numerous affronts, was obliged to resign.
And now, the object of the court being at length attained,
Lord Bute was immediately placed at the head of affairs, as
First Lord of the Treasury. ... The king and his minister were
resolved to carry matters with a high hand, and their
arbitrary attempts to coerce and intimidate opponents
disclosed their imperious views of the prerogative.
Preliminaries of a treaty of peace with France having been
agreed upon, against which a strong popular feeling was
aroused, the king's vengeance was directed against all who
ventured to disapprove them. The Duke of Devonshire having
declined to attend the council summoned to decide upon the
peace, was insulted by the king, and forced to resign his
office of Lord Chamberlain. A few days afterwards the king,
with his own hand, struck his grace's name from the list of
privy councillors. ... No sooner had Lord Rockingham heard of
the treatment of the Duke of Devonshire than he ... resigned
his place in the household. A more general proscription of the
Whig nobles soon followed. The Dukes of Newcastle and Grafton,
and the Marquess of Rockingham, having presumed, as peers of
Parliament, to express their disapprobation of the peace, were
dismissed from the lord-lieutenancies of their counties. ...
Nor was the vengeance of the court confined to the heads of
the Whig party.
{929}
All placemen, who had voted against the preliminaries of
peace, were dismissed. ... The preliminaries of peace were
approved by Parliament; and the Princess of Wales, exulting in
the success of the court, exclaimed, 'Now my son is king of
England.' But her exultation was premature. ... These
stretches of prerogative served to unite the Whigs into an
organised opposition. ... The fall of the king's favoured
minister was even more sudden than his rise. ... Afraid, as he
confessed, 'not only of falling himself, but of involving his
royal master in his ruin,' he resigned suddenly [April 7,
1763],--to the surprise of all parties, and even of the king
himself,--before he had held office for eleven months. ... He
retreated to the interior cabinet, whence he could direct more
securely the measures of the court; having previously negotiated
the appointment of Mr. George Grenville as his successor, and
arranged with him the nomination of the cabinet. The ministry
of Mr. Grenville was constituted in a manner favourable to the
king's personal views, and was expected to be under the
control of himself and his favorite."
_T. E. May,
Constitutional History of England, 1760-1860,
chapter 1._
ALSO IN:
_J. H. Jesse,
Memoirs of the Life and Reign of George III.,
chapter 1-10 (volume 1)._
_The Grenville Papers,
volumes 1-2._
_W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapters 2-3 (volume 1)._
_G. O. Trevelyan,
Early History of Charles James Fox,
chapter 4._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1760-1775.
Crown, Parliament and Colonies.
The conflicting theories of their relations.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1760-1775.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762.
The third Family Compact of the Bourbon kings.
War with Spain.
See FRANCE: A. D. 1761 (AUGUST).
ENGLAND: A. D. 1761-1762.
The Seven Years War: Last Campaigns in Germany.
See GERMANY: A. D. 1761-1762.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1 762.
Capture of Havana.
See CUBA: A. D. 1514-1851.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1762-1764.
"The North Briton," No. 45, and the prosecution of Wilkes.
"The popular dislike to the new system of Government by
courtiers had found vent in a scurrilous press, the annoyance
of which continued unabated by the sham retirement of the
minister whose ascendancy had provoked this grievous kind of
opposition. The leader of the host of libellers was John
Wilkes, a man of that audacity and self-possession which are
indispensable to success in the most disreputable line of
political adventure. But Wilkes had qualities which placed him
far above the level of a vulgar demagogue. Great sense and
shrewdness, brilliant wit, extensive knowledge of the world,
with the manners of a gentleman, were among the
accomplishments which he brought to a vocation, but rarely
illustrated by the talents of a Catiline. Long before he
engaged in public life, Wilkes had become infamous for his
debaucheries, and, with a few other men of fashion, had tested
the toleration of public opinion by a series of outrages upon
religion and decency. Profligacy of morals, however, has not
in any age or country proved a bar to the character of a
patriot. ... Wilkes' journal, which originated with the
administration of Lord Bute [first issued June 5, 1762], was
happily entitled 'The North Briton,' and from its boldness and
personality soon obtained a large circulation. It is surpassed
in ability though not often equalled in virulence by the
political press of the present day; but at a time when the
characters of public men deservedly stood lowest in public
estimation, they were protected, not unadvisedly perhaps, from
the assaults of the press by a stringent law of libel. ... It
had been the practice since the Revolution, and it is now
acknowledged as an important constitutional right, to treat
the Speech from the Throne, on the opening of Parliament, as
the manifesto of the minister; and in that point of view, it
had from time to time been censured by Pitt, and other leaders
of party, with the ordinary license of debate. But when Wilkes
presumed to use this freedom in his paper, though in a degree
which would have seemed temperate and even tame had he spoken
to the same purport in his place in Parliament, it was thought
necessary to repress such insolence with the whole weight of
the law. A warrant was issued from the office of the Secretary
of State to seize--not any person named--but 'the authors,
printers, and publishers of the seditious libel, entitled the
North Briton, No. 45.' Under this warrant, forty-nine persons
were arrested and detained in custody for several days; but as
it was found that none of them could be brought within the
description in the warrant, they were discharged. Several of
the individuals who had been so seized, brought actions for
false imprisonment against the messengers; and in one of these
actions, in which a verdict was entered for the plaintiff
under the direction of the Lord Chief Justice of the Common
Pleas, the two important questions as to the claim of a
Secretary of State to the protection given by statute to
justices of the peace acting in that capacity, and as to the
legality of a warrant which did not specify any individual by
name, were raised by a Bill of Exceptions to the ruling of the
presiding judge, and thus came upon appeal before the Court of
King's Bench. ... The Court of King's Bench ... intimated a
strong opinion against the Crown upon the important
constitutional questions which had been raised, and directed
the case to stand over for further argument; but when the case
came on again, the Attorney-General Yorke prudently declined
any further agitation of the questions. ... These proceedings
were not brought to a close until the end of the year 1765,
long after the administration under which they were instituted
had ceased to exist. ... The prosecution of Wilkes himself was
pressed with the like indiscreet vigour. The privilege of
Parliament, which extends to every case except treason,
felony, and breach of the peace, presented an obstacle to the
vengeance of the Court. But the Crown lawyers, with a
servility which belonged to the worst times of prerogative,
advised that a libel came within the purview of the exception,
as having a tendency to a breach of the peace; and upon this
perversion of plain law, Wilkes was arrested, and brought
before Lord Halifax for examination. The cool and wary
demagogue, however, was more than a match for the Secretary of
State; but his authorship of the alleged libel having been
proved by the printer, he was committed close prisoner to the
Tower. In a few days, having sued out writs of habeas, he was
brought up before the Court of Common Pleas. ... The argument
which would confound the commission of a crime with conduct
which had no more than a tendency to provoke it, was at once
rejected by an independent court of justice; and the result
was the liberation of Wilkes from custody.
{930}
But the vengeance of the Court was not turned aside by this
disappointment. An ex-officio prosecution for libel was
immediately instituted against the member for Aylesbury; he
was deprived of his commission as colonel of the
Buckinghamshire militia; his patron, Earl Temple, who provided
the funds for his defence, was at the same time dismissed from
the lord-lieutenancy of the same county, and from the Privy
Council. When Parliament assembled in the autumn, the first
business brought forward by the Government was this
contemptible affair--a proceeding not merely foolish and
undignified, but a flagrant violation of common justice and
decency. Having elected to prosecute Wilkes for this alleged
libel before the ordinary tribunals of the country, it is
manifest that the Government should have left the law to take
its course unprejudiced. But the House of Commons was now
required to pronounce upon the very subject-matter of inquiry
which had been referred to the decision of a court of law; and
this degenerate assembly, at the bidding of the minister,
readily condemned the indicted paper in terms of extravagant
and fulsome censure, and ordered that it should be burned by
the hands of the common hangman. Lord North, on the part of
the Government, then pressed for an immediate decision on the
question of privilege; but Pitt, in his most solemn manner,
insisting on an adjournment, the House yielded this point. On
the following day, Wilkes, being dangerously wounded in a duel
with Martin, one of the joint Secretaries to the Treasury, who
had grossly insulted him in the House, for the purpose of
provoking a quarrel, was disabled from attending in his place;
but the House, nevertheless, refused to postpone the question
of privilege beyond the 24th of the month. On that day, they
resolved 'that the privilege of Parliament does not extend to
the case of writing and publishing seditious libels, nor ought
to be allowed to obstruct the ordinary course of the laws in
the speedy and effectual prosecution of so heinous and
dangerous an offence.' Whatever may be thought of the public
spirit or prudence of a House of Commons which could thus
officiously define its privilege, the vote was practically
futile, since a court of justice had already decided in this
very case, as a matter of strict law, that the person of a
member of Parliament was protected from arrest on a charge of
this description. The conduct of Pitt on this occasion was
consistent with the loftiness of his character. ... The
conduct of the Lords was in harmony with that of the Lower
House. ... The session was principally occupied by the
proceedings against this worthless demagogue, whom the
unworthy hostility of the Crown and both Houses of Parliament
had elevated into a person of the first importance. His name
was coupled with that of Liberty; and when the executioner
appeared to carry into effect the sentence of Parliament upon
'The North Briton,' he was driven away by the populace, who
rescued the obnoxious paper from the flames, and evinced their
hatred and contempt for the Court faction by 'burning in its
stead the jack-boot and the petticoat, the vulgar emblems
which they employed to designate John Earl of Bute and his
supposed royal patroness. ... Wilkes himself, however, was
forced to yield to the storm. Beset by the spies of
Government, and harassed by its prosecutions, which he had not
the means of resisting, he withdrew to Paris. Failing to attend
in his place in the House of Commons on the first day after
the Christmas recess, according to order, his excuse was
eagerly declared invalid; a vote of expulsion immediately
followed [January 19, 1764], and a new writ was ordered for
Aylesbury."
_W. Massey,
History of England: Reign of George III.,
chapter 4 (volume 1)._
ALSO IN:
_J. E. T. Rogers,
Historical Gleanings,
volume 2, chapter 3._
_Lord Mahon (Earl Stanhope),
History of England, 1713-1783,
chapters 41-42 (volume 5)._
ENGLAND: A. D. 1763.
The end and results of the Seven Years War:
The Peace of Paris and Peace of Hubertsburg.
America to be English, not French.
See SEVEN YEARS WAR.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1763-1764.
Determination to tax the American colonies.
The Sugar (or Molasses) Act.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1763-1764.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1764.
The climax of the mercantile colonial policy and its
consequences.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1764.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1765.
Passage of the Stamp Act for the colonies.
See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1765.
ENGLAND: A. D. 1765-1768.
Grenville dismissed.
The Rockingham and the Grafton-Chatham Ministries.
Repeal of the Stamp Act.
Fresh trouble in the American colonies.